Games shipped with systems at launch is a practice that has all but died out, but Nintendo resurrected this tradition by including the five-game Wii Sports with its Wiis. Wii Sports, which includes Golf, Bowling, Tennis, Boxing, and Baseball, runs the gamut from simple distractions to clever Wii-experiences. Well break each game down, give them their own score, and score the whole bundle at the end.

Tennis

Tennis exemplifies both the Wii-motes strengths and weaknesses at the same time. The game supports up to four players and places them on a grass court. Swinging the racket with the Wii wand is a simple action, but there are times where your character will swing in a way you didnt intend. Players with exaggerated movements will be the victims of this double-swing most often. When the wand breaks the plane parallel to the television, it swings on that side of your body regardless of whether or not that is your actual swing. Aiming your hits is based on when you swing. Game after game, multiple volleys taking over two or three minutes kept us coming back for more. Our only real complaint is the inability to actually control your character. There were too many times that we simply couldnt reach a shot because the characters move too slowly

Wii Baseball is akin to an old game from my childhood  wiffleball. The rules are actually very similar in fact. Players each take turns as pitcher and batter for three innings trying to score as many runs as possible. Batting is a simple swinging motion with the wand, whereas pitching is an equally simple motion of motioning the wand in a pitching motion. Pitching was both fun and incredibly easy and scores during our review time were all very low. Players should watch out for little glitches in the pitching, however. There were a few times that our character threw a pitch while we were still selecting our location and getting ready. These were isolated incidents, but each run netted base hits. This game would have gotten a perfect score if there were more options in the number of innings, but its a blast nonetheless.

Score: 4.5

Boxing

This was the one and only Wii Sport event that made us glad it lasted only three rounds. The idea behind it is great; take the nun-chuck and wand and motion to box, pummeling your friend standing right next to you. In practice, however, the controls are clumsy and unresponsive. Dodging punches and shifting your characters position is easy enough (holding the controller close to your body and leaning your whole body) but the actual act of punching is much too difficult. The game doesnt accurately distinguish between high and low punches, and strong blows pop up out of nowhere. Eventually, when you realize trying to strategize and think your match out is pointless, youll just start swinging away. This game is easily the weakest of the five.

Score: 2.0

Golf

Unfortunately for links fans, Wii Golf is just as inconsistent and unresponsive as boxing. Swinging the club for a normal shot is more difficult than it has to be. We actually never came to understand the sensor mechanic of the swing itself. For a while, we thought it was the velocity of the sensor as it passed where the ball would be in real life, but we were proven wrong on our approach shot. Why would you force players to hit less than full strength by making their shots slice and hook when they hit it hard? Selecting the right power level for each shot is nearly impossible and shooting scores is a guarantee for nearly everyone.

Score: 2.5

Bowling

Ah, if the only thing that was included in this package was the Bowling game, we would have been more than happy. With such a simple game as bowling, all Nintendo had to do was capture the motion of rolling a ball down the lane and the mechanics of placing spin as it travels down the lane, and they struck the nail right on the head. Approaching the line with B, players release the ball at the correct time by releasing the B button and rotating the controller as necessary to generate spin. Throwing up my 190 average in real life against my friends on the Wii was incredibly easy, but what was more impressive was just how well the flaws in my real game popped up in the game. Bowling is such a great representation of real bowling that it should come complete with a strap-on beer gut and a wrist guard.

Score: 5.0

Taking a look at the overall package, Wii Sports is an addictive interactive game that virtually anyone can pick up and play. Wii Bowling overshadows the rest of the four other games because it offers exactly what you want from the Wii  an interactive virtual simulation of the real life activity. When you turn the controller, your ball has spin when it leaves your hand. We grabbed everyone we could to play Wii Sports with us, including a brief baseball game against the pizza guy who delivered a couple days ago. Hardcore and non-gamers alike can all become proficient at most of these games in no time, with only Boxing and Golf giving us grief. For a free game thats included with the system, we couldnt be happier. We hope that Nintendo expands on the Bowling, Baseball, and Tennis games and tweaks Golf for future releases because they have a real winner on their hands.

Features:

Play Tennis, Baseball, Golf, Bowling and Boxing in the comfort of one's living room. No ball boys scurrying about, no oil from the alleys to get players dirty and no rain to keep anyone from a day at the court, park or course. Use the Wii Remote controller to mimic the actions of swinging a racket, bat or club, roll a ball down an alley or bring the left jab.

Players can use their own Mii caricatures in the game and play them against their friends' Miis for a more personalized experience. As players improve, their Miis' skill levels will increase, so that they can see exactly how much better they've become.

People of all skill levels can pick up and play any of the games in the unprecedented Wii Sports package, making this truly a title for everyone!

By Patrick Evans CCC
Staff Writer

Rating out of 5

Rating Description

2.5

Graphics Yea, the graphics look kinda Tyco kiddie-train childish. At
least you get to use your Mii in all the games..

3.8

Control Games that work are fantastic, while those that don't (Boxing,
Golf) are clumsy and frustrating. .

2.3

4.8

Play
Value This score reflects just how excellent Bowling is, and just
how much fun you can have bowling at home instead of going out to
a real alley. Seriously, we love this friggin' game..

3.9

Overall Rating -
Good
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Preview

Wii
Sports is the first title aimed at the non-gamer market.
Can it succeed? by CCC
Staff

May
15, 2006 - Baseball,
Golf and Tennis have been video game staples of the
sports genre for years now and with each subsequent
release, publishers like EA and 2K Games attempt to
evolve the respective genres with a little more visual
realism, a little control tweak here etc. Nintendo
is taking a decidely different approach and suggesting
that you don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle.
In this case, the sizzle translates into the sense
of entertainment Nintendo is hoping you desire by
playing these games on their new Wii system.

Wii
Tennis:

Demoed
at the Nintendo press conference, the world was able
to see Wii Sports Tennis played in realtime with 3
players and one gaming legend on stage. Holding the
wii-mote like an actual tennis racket, 4 players were
able to serve and volley back and forth, simply by
moving the wii-mote in the air, while the motion-sensing
technology did the rest. Players don't have to jockey
for position, as their onscreen counterparts are always
in the right spot, but they will have to swing the
wii-mote at the right time to make the shot. While
it looked like fun, many of us wondered how long the
honeymoon of the new technology would last - would
playing Wii Tennis with a group of 4 non-gamers translate
into an entire evening of fun, or would it simply
be a novelty for 30 minutes? That will be entirely
up to whom you play with.

The
game is extremely easy to pick up and play, although
it will take grandma and grandpa awhile before they
realize they're responsible for swinging the racket
when the ball comes to their character. We imagine
that will be some of the fun; people becoming entirely
confused as to what character they are since you're
all standing on the same side of the room. If after
20 minutes the people you are playing with still don't
get it, time to start yawning and close up shop, making
sure to get up bright and early the next day to locate
some better, smarter, friends and/or family.

While
Wii Tennis doesn't nearly come close to the technical
brilliance of Visual Concepts Top Spin series, in
all fairness it isn't trying to. Think of it like
the next iteration of Pong; that hits the nail squarely
on the head.

Wii
Golf:

Wii
Golf will either delight or annoy you. You use the
wii-mote as a golf club (first you must select whether
you're a righty or a lefty) and the game does an absolutely
admirable job of capturing your swing motion and speed
while you swing the wii-mote as a club and then translates
that into how far your ball will go. You will still
have to use the analog stick to direct the path of
your ball. Unfortunately the wii-mote isn't a golf
club and it's a little awkward to the get the hang
of as the weight and feel of a club just simply isn't
there. Naturally if you're a good golfer, playing
Wii-Golf might be a more satisfying experience. We
didn't have much time to tinker with it due to the
heavy time restraints but it definitely has potential.
We personally think Golf might be the more aptly gravitated
toward "party game" on the Wii Sports list
as standing around, having a beer while your friends
tee-off is what makes life great.

Wii
Baseball

Only
the batting system was on demo at E3, which either
means the game will just be about batting or we haven't
seen the pitching, fielding aspect yet. We suspect
the latter as you can't call the sport "Baseball"
if it's just about swinging a bat and we can imagine
all sorts of cool pitches and catches you might be
able to do with the motion-sensing technology.

In
the E3 demo, you were given 10 pitches to try and
return. The first few were giveaways as they were
slow and quite easy to nail, but they became increasingly
trickier and faster. Naturally the Wii translated
the speed of our swing into how far to send the ball
flying. It doesn't appear that the vertical position
of where you hold the bat (wii-mote) comes into play,
but there is a lot of time between now and launch
to tweak.

Wii
Airplane

Fly
a plane using the wii-mote, but was the hardest demo
out of the four we played. Flying through rings wasn't
nearly as easy at it looked, primarily due to the
touchiness between the wii-mote motion-sensoring and
the game. The game very much reminded us very much
of a new-fangled Pilot Wings. We loved the original
and the sequel on the N64 and we say it's about time
for another in the series! Nothiing earth-shattering
but a little sampling of perhaps something to come
down the line.

Visually

All
of the games featured non-threatening cartoony characters
in created for absolute mass appeal. The visuals weren't
exciting or taxing on the hardware for that matter,
although every game was running at a glossy 60 FPS
we were told.

Analysis:

If
Nintendo packages this one with the system at launch
- which they've been doing with their special DS bundles,
it could be just the game to get all of those non-gamers
who don't give a hoot about a place named Hyrule and
a kid named Link, to part with their cash.